Here in the US this Thursday is our Thanksgiving holiday. Originally celebrated the 4th Thursday in November, it has expanded where most people also take off the following day, Friday, for a long weekend. In fact many schools here in the US close the entire week to celebrate this holiday commemorating the Pilgrims giving thanks for making it through their first year here in the New World with the help of their friends, the native peoples of America. It also marks the official start of the Christmas/New Years holiday season here.

Beyond that though Thanksgiving always gives me a moment to pause, reflect and think about what I have to be thankful for.  Here at staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud we wanted to ask our readers, no matter where in the world you are, what you have to be thankful for. It could be something DevOps or IT related, it could be something unrelated. But if you tweet what you are thankful for and use the hashtag #DevOpsThanks our team will monitor and we are picking the top ten tweets to win one of our new DevOps T-shirts. So lets hear what you are thankful for this year.

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Which of the following best describes how you currently monitor and manage systems across your hybrid cloud environment?(Required)

Multiple separate tools for different environments

Multiple separate tools for different monitoring and management functions

Single consolidated dashboard

Custom built monitoring and management solution

No full monitoring and management solution

Don’t know

How valuable would it be for your monitoring and management solution to incorporate predictive analytics to help you identify and address system issues that are critical and not waste time or effort working through all the data and “noise” that is not critical?(Required)

Extremely valuable

Moderately valuable

Somewhat valuable

Slightly valuable

Not valuable

How do you most typically address potential system issues BEFORE they impact your operations?(Required)

Automated workflows and playbooks to remediate potential issues as soon as they are detected

An orchestrated response process that leverages automation, AI, and human expertise to rapidly respond to potential issues

Advanced monitoring tools such as predictive analytics and anomaly detection to proactively identify and address potential issues

Respond to issues as they arise, using manual processes and troubleshooting techniques

A combination of automated remediation, orchestrated response, and/or proactive monitoring to address potential system issues

Don’t know

Other

What methods does your organization use to control and monitor cloud/IT spending?(Required)

Centralized procurement processes

Pre-approved budget thresholds

Automated cost monitoring tools

Department-level spending controls

Regular cost audits and reviews

Cloud cost optimization platform

Approval workflows for resource provisioning

Native financial operations tools provided by the cloud provider

No formal controls in place

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

Which methods do you rely on most to detect security vulnerabilities in your systems?(Required)

Automated scanning tools

Manual assessments

Vendor notifications

Threat modeling (for early detection)

None of these

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

What are the TWO most common ways you prioritize vulnerabilities to address within your environment?(Required)

Based on potential impact

Based on exploitability

Regulatory compliance requirements

Based on CVSS scores

Risk-based analysis of multiple factors

First-in-first-out approach

No formal prioritization process

Don’t know

How do you typically handle system updates and security patches?(Required)

Automated updates and patches

Manually review and apply updates and patches on a regular schedule

A combination of automation and manual review

Apply updates and patches on an as-needed basis.

Outsourced update and patch management

No defined process

Don’t know

Other

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I wanted to take a moment and list a few things we are thankful for here at staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud

1. Most of all we are thankful to you our millions of readers who have made our site successful and inspire us to keep pushing to bring the most and best DevOps related content.
2. We are grateful for all of the DevOps practitioners who are the real heroes of this story; that are doing more, faster and better every day.
3. We are extremely thankful for our 70 + sponsors whose support enables us to keep the lights on here and keep pushing with new ideas.
4. We are thankful for our feature writers: Tony Bradley, David Geer, George Hulme, Ericka Chickowski and Chris Riley who have contributed so many great articles.
5. For our 200 + contributors who have given the site its depth and voice with all of your great contributed articles.
6. We are thankful that we live in such amazing times.  Where the commonplace would be considered miraculous just a few years ago. We couldn’t talk, learn and practice DevOps if not for all of the great technologies and advances that have come before it.
7. We are thankful that in a time where our world on some days seems ready to blow up in conflict, our audience continues to grow not only here in the US (which is now a minority of our audience) but throughout the entire globe.

On a personal note, I am grateful for the terrific group of people who have joined with me at staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud, who bought into a common dream of creating something new & great; who with me push the rope up the hill everyday to make it happen.  I am also grateful to my wife and kids, who don’t see me quite as often as they did before staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud but who are the reason I get up and do it everyday.  Most of all I am grateful to God or whatever you want to call him for giving me the chance to live a blessed life and the opportunity to meet such great people and do something I love for a living.

So what about you? What are you grateful for? Tweet it on #DevOpsthanks for chance for a t-shirt.